And the Cup goes to ….

CSK beat MI in a thrilling final.

There was a making of a perfect final.Performances by A.R. Rahman, Shahid Kapur, Bipasha Basu entertained the full-packed crowd before the start of the match. B-town made it's presence felt in form of Sushmita Sen, Geeta Basra, Dino Morea amongst others.And they were all rooting for one team- The Mumbai Indians!

It was for the first time in DLF IPL final that both the captains were Indians, and both legends in their own way. The one was playing with five stiches and two painkillers, while the other was playing with his usual Midas touch! A thing to note is that in all three editions of IPL, there was atleast one team from South India in the final (last time, both were from south).

Dhoni won the toss and had no hesitation in batting first. He made his strategy clear. Give respect to the bowlers in the initial overs, save wickets and then go after the bowlers in later stage. And they executed the plan perfectly!

In the end CSK beat MI by 22 runs.It looks like a healthy margin considerin it was a T-20 game. But the game was much closer than the margin suggests. According to me, Mumbai Indians lost out because of three reasons.

Reason #1: Catches win matches, but MI forgot that!

Dropping Raina twice cost very dearly for Mumbai Indians because he went on to score a 35 ball 57. In the first case Abhishek Nayar and Dilhara Fernando were playing 'dog and the bone', while in the second case, butterfinger Zaheer dropped the simplest of all catches. In contrast, CSK's catching was just superb! Raina's catch to dismiss Tiwari or Jakati's catch to dismiss Duminy were too good!

Reason # 2:Pollard was left to steer the sunk ship

Pollard was sent when there was only three overs left and 55 runs to be scored. I understand that he was the highest bid player in IPL, he can hit sixes at will and also really long, but he is no God! I didn't understand this strategy of Sachin. I belive he should have been sent ahead of Duminy.

Reason # 3:M.S. Dhoni's Captaincy:

Some might call it his midas touch or his luck, but MSD made sure that he got his things right at the crucial time.For Pollard, Dhoni had stationed Hayden at the edge of mid-off circle, right besides the bowler's run- up. And Pollard hit straight to the fielder and it was game over for MI. Also good fielders like Raina were quite intelligently positioned.

Mumbai Indians truly deserved this year's IPL for the way they played all through the tournament, but they crumbled under crunch situation. I feel sorry for Sachin but I am happy that an Indian Captain has lifted the cup!